Esters are essential components of many consumer and industrial products. Esters can be included in product formulations as raw materials and can also be converted into other additives, such as surfactants, solvents, and lubricants. For example, esters are routinely processed into alcohols and ultimately surfactants on an industrial scale for use in detergents. Given their widespread application, economical and environmentally-responsible methods of producing esters are desirable. Currently, the materials most commonly used to form esters are derived from oils or petroleum processes. A method of producing esters from renewable sources would therefore offer cost and energy savings over conventional processes. One readily available renewable source is biomass, which can include plant matter such as forestry and agricultural residues. The use of biomass in manufacturing is increasing in popularity, and biomass is routinely converted into furan compounds to produce fuels and industrial chemicals.
Current methods for processing furan compounds result in complete hydrogenation and deoxygenation of the starting materials. The end products from such processes are therefore predominantly alkanes. One example is the processing of furan compounds for use in jet fuel. The terms “furan compound” and “furan materials” as used herein, refer to compounds containing at least one furan ring. The furan compounds are hydrodeoxygenated using a bifunctional catalyst at a temperature of 275° C. to 295° C. and 6 MPa of pressure to produce liquid alkanes. Similar processes used to hydrodeoxygenate species with saturated furan and ketone functional groups using bifunctional catalysts and reaction conditions of 240° C. to 260° C. and 5 MPa to 6 MPa of pressure yield alkanes and only trace amounts of oxygen-containing species. The forgoing and other current hydrodeoxygenation process technologies do not allow for the production of compounds containing a single functional group, such as an ester. Maintaining ester functionality is advantageous because unlike alkanes, esters may be further processed into other additives such as surfactants, thereby increasing their range of use.